


Through the years (Or five times Dean wished he was a fireman)

by lightly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightly/pseuds/lightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has seen a lot of fires in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the years (Or five times Dean wished he was a fireman)

Through the years  
(Or five times Dean wished he was a fireman)

 

I.

 

When he was four, Dean watched his house burn. He clung to his baby brother and stared up at the bright destruction. He could still see her outline in the flames and if he looked away, she would be gone.

He didn’t realize he was standing too close until his Dad had pulled him away.

Dad had left them for a brief moment to go speak to some men, and Sam cried. Dean just held him closer and whispered a half remembered nursery rhyme.

“Shhhh Sammy, Daddy’s right over there.”

He tried to rock Sam back to sleep but his eyes just drifted back to the fire. Jets of water were washing it away, turning it into a memory. Dean thought it would be better that way.

 

Years later the taste of charcoal licked at the back of his throat whenever he thought about that night, which he did more than he would ever admit to anyone.

The fire _is_ just a memory now, but he remembers all of it. The weight of Sam in his arms, the taste of his fathers tears.

 

II.

 

When he was fifteen they lived in a trailer park. Sam hated it; he said the other kids at school made fun of him. Since Dean rarely showed up to school, he didn’t give a crap about what the other kids thought of him or where he lived. They just didn’t know the value of having any sort of roof over their spoiled little heads.

One day, when Sam was at school and Dad was out meeting someone, Dean was out walking. The slow heat of the afternoon made him too lazy to do anything. Or at least, anything Dad would find useful. So he was just out walking, enjoying the warmth of the sun, enjoying the rare chance at just . . being.

He smelled the smoke before he saw it. The scent was dark and familiar and he took off running before it occurred to him not to. Soon he had found himself staring at an outline in a window. Its frantic, urgent gestures were distorted by the thick black surrounding it. In the distance Dean could hear sirens, but they still sounded so far away.

 

“Well I guess I know what you should be when you grow up.” One Fireman, Brian, Dean was sure that is what his name was, said to him. Dean managed to resist the urge to snort at that. Instead he just nodded and for a moment he let himself pretend like he had a choice.

“Just be careful, and don’t go running into burning buildings in the future, ok?”

Dean had just nodded again and was up and out of there before anyone thought to ask why he wasn’t at school, or suggested he go get checked out at the hospital.

 

III.

 

At twenty six he drove away from his brother for what he thought was the last time. Something felt had wrong, though, beyond the fact that he had just left Sam behind to his ‘normal’. He glanced at his watch, and then again, and again, his eyes locked on the second hand that refused to move.

“Awww, shit, Sammy.”

 

He looked at the girl on the ceiling for a brief second. The image was painful and he had a hateful, sick feeling in his stomach because he knew he couldn’t’ help her. It was all he could do to drag Sam out of there because Sam really didn’t want to leave. Dean thought it would be tougher to carry Sam out of this fire, but he would do it if he had too.

Déjà vu is just your brain being ahead of the rest of you, but that didn’t make the feeling any less unsettling, as Dean watched this new fire being washed away.

In the flickered red and blue lights, Sam’s face looked horribly young. His expression was angry, but his eyes were lost. Dean looked around at the emergency services, paramedics, police, and firemen. They got to help people then go back home to their families. Dean looked over at his brother who was half way to broken. Sam almost had that chance, but now Dean knows that is all Sam is going to get of that life. That thought just about killed him.

 

IV.

 

At twenty seven he didn’t so much pull Sam from another fire, as much as he stopped him from going back into it. Sam was hopped up on adrenaline and vengeance and hell bent on killing them both. That is what would have happened if Sam had broken out of Dean’s death grip; there was no way Dean would let his brother go back in there alone.

They had come here to save the family from their fate, and to kill the demon. One out of the two wasn’t bad, and as far as Dean was concerned they had accomplished the important thing.

But Sam had that lost, angry look again, the same one he wore last time they watched a building burn. And Dean had that hateful, helpless feeling lodged in his gut because he knew that the one person he might not be able to save, was the one who was most important.

 

V.

 

He is still twenty seven, and right now he is conscious enough to know that he might not live to see twenty eight. The familiar red and blue lights are keeping the hard edges of black away, but he can feel himself slipping.

He can hear the far away sound of metal on metal. Someone is cutting something out of something else.

“Get Sammy out first.” He thinks he says, but he is not sure. The soundless words are lost to the harsh noise of the saw.

For a brief second, a face dances in front of him and he thinks he recognizes it, but the confusion is making his head spin and it hurts to concentrate. The face is a picture of ten years later but the half memory is comforting.

“I would have made a good fireman, Brian.” He mumbles as his world begins to grey. “I really think I would.”

 

FIN


End file.
